Why I Love the Mister (Part 1)

5:45 I'm at work and get a text message from him.  I don't notice.

7:25 I read text message. It says, Our furnace is broken. Blowing black smoke all over the basement. Not good.

7:26 Panic attack, thinking of my two maxed out credit cards, my miniscule bank account balance, and the huge amount of money we’re going to owe the IRS, wondering how to add a new furnace into that mix.

7:28 I call him and ask how bad it is. He replies, "I spent two hours fixing it and machining new parts at work.  It’s blowing hot air again and the smoke has cleared."

7:32 I call him my hero, profess my undying love, and promise any number of favors of ANY variety. He fixed the furnace!

Projects

Hat for the Mister's Birthday



I ended up ripping out the socks I was planning on making for him. I decided to tinker with the pattern and ended up rendering it impossible to deal with, so I quick-fast knit him a hat instead. I bought this wool on our camping trip to Mille Lacs in the spring and it was fun to work with. The color are natural and the yarn was sort of roughly spun, with little ares of unspun or overspun yarn, which would annoy the crap out of me in a bigger garment, but I found really charming in this little hat.

Pattern: Tychus
Yarn: heavy worsted weight from The Tinshack Co.
Needles: US size 8, bamboo straights

Shawl for MJ


(Charlie included for scale, and because he wouldn't got off the couch) (Edited to add: blogger crops pictures strangely, so it turns out that a couple of Charlie's feet are included in this shot and his whole body is included on the full size version)



My darling friend MJ moved to International Falls for a job. While I am delighted she got this great job, where they're already using her brilliance, close to her family and in a part of the state she loves, I am very sad that she won't be close by any more. Our pad thai lunches will be so much harder to schedule now that there's a several hour commute separating us.

I had been wracking my brain for something to give her as a going-away present. And I landed on this. There are patterns in knitting for prayer shawls. While I didn't pray as I knit this shawl (other than Please, God, let me find that dropped stitch) I did think about our friendship and all the things we've done together and been through together and of all my good wishes and happy thoughts for her future. I hope she can cuddle up in it, way up there in the hinterlands, and remember that I love her.

Pattern: Icarus from the Best of Interweave Knits
Yarn: Rowan Felted Tweed, 4 skeins and a little bit of the 5th
Needles: Addi Lace US size 8

Patio!

It's not all the way done, since we ran out of bricks and still need to do the edging and put new grass seed around it, but most of the work is done and I love it!

Boob Sweat

I spent much of the weekend digging in the patio from HELL in my backyard. Seriously, we haven't even gotten to the part where we put the pavers in the ground; we're still at the dig-up-sod-until-you-want-to-die part.

See, there used to be a giant maple at the end of our postage-stamp sized deck. When we bought the house there was only a stump left of the maple and the mister and I took care of that in our patented lazy-ass-homeowner way. We built a fire pit around the stump and burnt that sucker down over the course of a summer. Then, we tossed a layer of dirt over it, threw down some grass seed and called it done.

Now, years later, we cut up the mini-deck and are digging up sod for a patio. And all the roots from that maple? Well, they're messing me up. I'm doing most of the digging, but I REFUSE to use an ax to chop the roots (I'm accident prone), so I dig-dig-dig until the roots really get in the way, then I wait for the mister to chop the roots out so I can continue.

Anyway, I've been outside in the heat, the pouring rain, and the sun, digging in the yard and I am officially declaring boob sweat to be the most annoying of all feminine problems.

I'm mean, PMS sucks, and the way raging hormones can mess up my digestive tract is also no picnic, nor are high heels, pantyhose, underwires, bad hair, eyelash curlers, childbirth or the glass ceiling, but boob sweat? Yuck. The way the bottom of your sports bra gets all damp and then soaks your t-shirt so that it gets that weird line just under the bust, but no where else, the way you can actually feel the sweat pooling in your cleavage, and the way that if you shovel indiscriminately, a little bit of dirt can get in there, mix with the sweat, and create a mud puddle right there between the ladies? ANNOYING.

Stupidity

I had two small projects I want to get done today. Number One was to hang a shelf/pot rack thing over our stove. Number Two was to find a piece of wood to top my sewing table with. The table originally had a machine that folded down into a hole in the top when you weren’t using it, but I couldn’t work the machine (very old, very broken) so I gave it away and bought a dirt cheap one from someone who was cleaning out their aunt-in-law’s attic. Problem: new machine is smaller than old, so it falls through the hole in the table instead of sitting tidily on top of it. Rather than figure out a way to cut a piece of wood to plug the hole, I just wanted to buy a piece of plywood, cut it to fit the top of the entire table and screw it down.

I went to home depot and bought a shelf and screw hooks to make the pot rack thing, and a half sheet of plywood for the table project.

At the counter, I dropped the screw hooks into the bottom of the cart and somehow, stupidly, reached my hand through a hole in the cart to retrieve them and got my hand stuck. It took the cashier holding the card steady while I yanked backwards on the trapped hand to get myself free.

Then, at home, I was all I-am-woman-hear-me-roar and I unloaded the plywood by myself.

Did you know it’s been an unusually windy spring?

The wind caught the plywood and before I knew what was happening, I was three houses down the block and barefoot, having lost my flip flops somewhere along the way.

I wrestled the plywood back to my house and through the door, then unloaded the shelf I bought.

Turns out it’s about 2 inches too long for the space.

I need to return it, but after the whole got-my-hand-stuck-in-the-cart thing, I can’t bear to go back to the store today. It’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

The Dryer Incident

Our clothes dryer is…let’s go with “vintage.” It’s avocado green. It’s built like a tank. And it just won’t die. Last summer we replaced the belt, which was a nightmare of epic proportions. I am not mechanically inclined and the mister is not very good at giving clear, understandable directions, so the repair job culminated in us lifting the dryer off the floor, turning it upside down (you read that right) and SHAKING IT to dislodge a screwdriver that had tumbled down the vent shaft. It was several hours after that before either one of us could speak civilly to the other. (And I am not the one that dropped the damned screwdriver. I am the one that suggested where he could stick it once we retrieved it, though.)

More recently, the dryer started making a noise. The noise didn’t bother me. I’d just turn up the stereo and consider it fixed. I also do this with cars. Denial is not one of my better habits. The noise bothered the mister, though. Oh, it bothered him a lot. So one evening, he took apart the dryer and came upstairs with a pile of parts cupped in his dirty, dirty hands.

“I need you to get replacements parts for these.” I looked down at the collection of grimy, lint and grease-coated bits. There was something that resembled a Rollerblade wheel, a washer-looking thing, and a shattered plastic piece.

I raised my eyes back to his and laughed. “You’re joking, right?”

Of course he wasn’t joking. I slid the parts into a Ziploc baggie and stuck a post-it in there with the model number of our dryer. The next morning I trekked to Home Depot, Ace Hardware and Menard's. None of them sell replacement dryer parts. I ended up at this strange little shop tucked behind a broken-down car wash where the guy behind the counter gave me one of those lady, you must be lost looks. I guess my flutter sleeve top, skinny jeans, and freshly highlighted and curled hair looked a wee bit out of place in a shop that sold some sort of basement deodorizing product.

I pulled my Ziploc baggie of parts out of my purse and shook it. “My husband took apart my dryer, it's in pieces on my laundry room floor, and he says we need new ones of these.”

The man’s expression cleared. He sorted through the crap in the bag and returned with new parts in just a few seconds.

Last night we fixed the dryer. I only called him a dirty name twice and he only made that very male sound of irritation in his throat once, which is some sort of record for us because we are very prone to the home improvement fight.*

*Home Improvement Fight: noun; An argument wherein two people malign each other's aptitude with tools, spacial reasoning skills, and entire characters while they fix, re-do, remodel, or otherwise work on something in, on, or around their home.

My husband sometimes forgets to tell me things

My habit during unemployment has been to get up, spend some time looking for jobs (with a strict no messing around on the internet rule to prevent getting sucked into a youtube hole and never surfacing). Then, I go to the gym and sweat for an hour or so and come home for a shower.

Once I’m clean, I don’t really rush to put clothes back on. I mean, there’s no one here to see me and it’s not like anyone I know is free to just drop by in the afternoons to surprise me, so I just hang out in my undies.

Today I was clad in a pair of St. Patrick's themed undies (they were on sale!) and a towel turban, smoothing on moisturizer after my shower, when I happened to notice a guy in my yard snapping pictures of my house.

Key point: the window in my bathroom is shoulder high, so he, if he could see anything, could only see the bobbing of my towel as I bumped and ground my way through Britney’s Circus.

Still, PANIC! I hit the deck so fast I gave myself whiplash, and then I belly-crawled my way to my bedroom so I could slip on some pants and a zip-up sweatshirt.

Then I rushed out into the yard, braless with my towel turban all askew, and did the, “ExcUSE me, can I help you with something?’ thing, with my cell phone clutched in my hand, prepared to dial 911 if the guy made a single move I didn’t like.

I startled the shit out of him and he snapped around to face me, bobbling his camera and the measuring tape he had clutched in his hands.

“Uh, hi. I’m Ed,” he offered.

Apparently that was supposed to mean something to me, but I had no idea who he was.

“What are you doing on my lawn, Ed?”

“I’m a friend of your husband’s, we mountain bike together. I do gutter installations and last night he, uh, asked me to, um, stop by and take a look at your gutters. I told him I’d be stopping out today.”

I sighed. Poor Ed. I stuck out my hand and introduced myself properly, apologized for shouting at him, and explained that sometimes my husband does things without informing me.

Ed, bless his little heart, was immediately apologetic. “If I’d known you weren’t expecting me, I would have knocked and introduced myself,” he said. “I imagine that would be a little scary, seeing some stranger taking pictures of your house.”

“Especially given what I was wearing,” I mumbled under my breath.

“What was that?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “Well, take your measurements and let me know if there’s anything you need.”

Things I've Learned about Home Improvement

Things I’ve learned in the past 2.5 years about owning and rehabbing a home (and a little about being married too):

• Baby wipes are not flushable.
• If you have any sort of tree coverage in your yard, you should have your main sewer line (from your house to the street) BLADED once a year. Not just snaked, but bladed. Snaking just makes a path for waste water to flow down. Blading cuts out tree roots and other blockages.
• If one drops an earring down the drain and needs to retrieve it, one should be very cautious while disassembling the sink trap because there is icky, stinky gunk in there.
• A dryer is not as hard to repair as you’d think.
• You will never, ever get dried grout off of your clothes.
• Ditto drywall mud.
• Screw drivers have a “reverse.” Learn this. Love this.
• A Phillips head screw is easier to put in than a flat head screw, but it is a lot easier to strip the head of the Phillips screw.
• Always check the oven before preheating to make sure your husband didn’t hide dirty dishes in there before his mother dropped by.
• If there is a hole in the floor your dog will drop every toy in the house down that hole. You will never see those toys again and your dog will spend his days staring at that spot in the floor, willing it to open back up and cough up his toys.
• It is much faster to hit leaves with the mower and mulch them up than it is to rake and bag them.
• Fire pits make friends of neighbors. Except for that one guy who always gets smoke blown into his windows.
• You know that saw you left in the middle of the dining room? The one you were sure you wouldn’t bang your foot on in the middle of the night when you got up to let the dog out? Move it. Unless you like stitches.
• Tools are not as complicated as the men in your life make them seem. Really. On, off, keep your fingers away from the sharp edges. You’re good to go.
• Measure twice. Measure three times. Always double check before you cut anything.
• Buy extra tile. You will screw up at least half a dozen pieces and drop another 3 or 4 on the floor where they will shatter into thousands of tiny, knife-like ceramic shards.
• Make sure you don’t mix up the hot and cold water pipes when you’re plumbing in a shower. Also, if you shower in my basement, note that the hot and cold water are backwards.
• It is possible for a dishwasher to overheat.
• If your husband is doing the wiring expect to come home to a charred circle on the wall at least once.
• If you buy multiple gallons or bottles of paint, floor sealer, polyurethane, or grout always, always make sure they match. Compare labels. Compare visually. Then, mix half of one container with half of another to make sure any differences between batches are dealt with.
• That screw? The last one you need to attach the cabinet to the wall? Don’t look now, but it’s in your foot.
• Learn how to relight your furnace’s pilot light. It will invariably go out on the coldest night of the year when your husband is out of town and your father will not enjoy you calling him at 2:00 a.m. to request he talk you through the procedure.
• The worst part about installing an egress window is digging the giant hole along your foundation.
• Insulate your attic. Thoroughly. It will lower your heating bill dramatically.
• Install storm doors. Get the kind where the screen rolls up into the door itself so you never have to mess around with changing out the screen and window.
• That nice, new fridge for the kitchen? Yeah, it’s not fitting through that door. Or that door. Nope, not that one either.
• With practice, one can disassemble a refrigerator to allow it to fit through ridiculously narrow doorways in about 12 minutes.
• The detritus from home improvement, whether it’s dust, dirt, chunks of wood, pieces of linoleum, or some sort of liquid being applied to some sort of surface, it’s going to end up in your hair, your eyes, your mouth, and your underwear. Prepare accordingly.
• Sometimes you and your significant others will fight about home improvement projects. The best way to solve this fight is NOT to look from the crowbar to your husband’s head and back again. Honest. The best way to solve it is to leave him to finish whatever idiotic thing he’s in the middle of while you go crack a beer and sit down somewhere quiet. Wait a few minutes and he’ll come out and say, “I think we have to do it your way.” Do not gloat.
• There will be at least one urgent care/emergency room visit and stitches are the most likely outcome. Concussions are a close second.
• If you can’t find the dog, look inside the refrigerator box you dragged outside.
• Chainsaws do not belong on the top shelf in the shed. They can fall from that height, land on someone’s hand, and result in a lot of blood, some swearing, a little wooziness on the part of the noninjured party, a lot of wooziness on the part of the injured party, and a trip to the hospital.
• Stock up on 9 volt batteries. I know, only your smoke detectors use them, but every smoke detector in your house is going to die at the same time and they will all start making the low-battery-beep at 3:00 a.m.
• Lightbulbs also die at the same time. Every single one in the house is going to go out in a one week period.
• A good friend helps you move. A really good friend shows up on kitchen demolition day with gloves, safety goggles, and a good attitude.
• Even though you’ve never told them, all of your neighbors know you’re remodeling.
• You are not the only couple that ever got into a fight at Home Depot. You probably aren’t even the only couple to get into a fight that day.
• Make sure the knob is installed on the interior of the closet door before you shut yourself in there. You will not be able to get out otherwise.
• Picking out paint colors is tough. Finding light fixtures you BOTH like that don’t cost $5,000 is tougher.
• If you finish a guest room, plan on people using it right away.
• Learn about shingles. You never know when that information will come in handy.
• That guy at the hardware store? The one who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about. TOTALLY FAKING IT. Do your own research.
• You do not need a fancy studfinder, but using one is way easier than tapping your knuckles along the wall trying to find a stud.
• Invest in a laser level. It comes in handy for everything from lining up kitchen cabinets to hanging pictures on the wall.
• Sometimes the picture is indeed level and it’s your wall that’s crooked.
• When finishing floors, apply sealant carefully and with strategy. If you are not paying attention, you will paint yourself into a corner.
• When finishing or refinishing wood items, do it in a very well-lit area. Sand lightly between coats. Apply the finish slowly to avoid creating air bubbles and keep your brush a little dry to avoid drips and runs.
• Wax, like candles, placed directly on a finished wooden surface will eat the finish.
• If you have hardwood floors, invest in one of those big mops they use on basketball court floors. Spray the bottom with some pledge, run it over your floors and enjoy the shine. It’s a quick way tidy up and in the long run is far cheaper than buying swiffer cloths.
• When your husband is up to his ass in a home improvement project and says, “Honey, can you come here for a second,” plan on spending the rest of you day holding, propping up, running to the hardware store, digging for lost tools in the garage, and generally wishing you hadn’t been home when he decided he needed help.
• Do not lean on towel bars. They are not always securely attached to the wall and they might rip loose and you might fall down and get hurt.
  

Refinishing wood floors

I think refinishing wood floors might be the most labor intensive thing you can do in a home.

I’ve done nearly everything else, including hanging drywall, mudding and taping, laying tile, laying wood flooring, reroofing, landscaping, ripping up carpeting, various kinds of demolition, plumbing, and installing windows, and by far, refinishing wood floors is the most exhausting.

With the exception of the kitchen and bathroom, our entire upstairs is wood floor. Living room, hallway, dining room, two bedrooms, and 6 closets, all hardwood.

We started on Friday evening by hauling everything out of those rooms and closets. It’s all piled precariously in the basement and the garage and I might have to wear the exact same outfit all week because I have no idea where the rest of my pants are.

Then we rented this terrifying floor sander. The mister used it. Wouldn't even let me have a turn.

While he got to stand upright and walk around like an evolved being with the floor sander, yours truly was on her hands and knees with an orbital sander going around the perimeter of every room and getting all the nooks and crannies the floor sander couldn’t reach. I spent a lot of time in the closets because the floor sander just couldn’t get in there.

We had to sand the floors three separate times. Once with a heavy duty 36-grit sandpaper to get the huge dings, scratches, and stains out, once with 60-grit to even out any bumpy patches, and once with 100-grit to get the floors mirror-smooth.

This was okay for the mister, who was, of course, standing upright, but because I was either on my hands and knees or squatting in the most unladylike fashion for all three rounds of sanding, my back and thighs are killing me.

I broke a flip flop and sanded my hands a couple of times on accident (exfoliating!), and I have a series of mystery bruises*, including a giant one on my left butt cheek, but we managed to escape the weekend relatively unscathed.

I was so completely covered in sawdust that every movement created a shower of super-fine dust. I had sawdust in my ears, covering my eyebrows, and basically everywhere but under the mask I was wearing.

We made a grand total of 6 trips to Home Depot over the weekend.

I hate Home Depot.

If they sold Advil and whiskey at the checkout counter, I’d like it better.

We managed to survive without any huge home improvement fights, probably due to the fact that it was impossible to speak to each other over the steady drone of the floor sander and the scream of the orbital sander I was using.

Although, once the mister turned off the floor sander, he could apparently hear me singing along at the top of my lungs to my ipod. I only figured this out when I saw him sitting on the floor laughing his ass off.

We spent all day Saturday sanding. And I do mean all day. We started at 7:15 in the morning, after making a coffee and donut run, and we worked until 9:00 that evening.

It will take a few days to apply the last few coats of polyurethane and then the mister decided that since all the furniture was out of the house, we should paint the rest of the rooms upstairs, so there’s a couple more days of sleeping on the tiny guest bed in the basement.

But the floors do look really nice and it’s the last big project left. After this, we’re going to redo the upstairs bathroom, but that’s small potatoes compared to the projects we’ve already completed.

* Mystery bruise: a bruise of unknown origin, usually noticed upon getting naked before a shower; after notice, is usually remarked upon with a "huh, I don't remember getting that." Not to be confused with a bar bruise, which is a bruise one incurs while under the intoxicating effects of liquor. One has no memory of how one received said bruise, but the origin is clear: beer.

I got to go to the ER at 7:45 this morning

So, I’m working up this long post about my weekend, including the fun that is hosting a bridal shower without a kitchen sink, the joys of taking the bride out for an evening of dancing only to have her sit there, grumpy, at the table with a glass of water, but something came up.

That something is a fucking hole in my thigh.

See, that kitchen sink (the one that should be in my kitchen) is on a stool in my living room (don’t ask. The mister is seriously in the dog house over this.). This morning I showered, got dressed, and was walking to the dining room to feed the dog. The dog was performing his usual cartwheels at the possibility of getting fed and the little fucker tripped me. Guess what I ran into.

The sharp corner of the kitchen sink.

I now have a hole in my brand new black capris and a hole in my thigh to match.

The good news is that my mom snuck me into her ER and patched me up pretty quickly, so at least I didn’t have the 4 hour wait I would have enjoyed otherwise.