Project Distraction

Today has been a beautiful day. For the first time since November, the thermometer crept up to 70 degrees. The sun shone, the breeze warmed and, overall, it was a beautiful spring day.

This, of course, made it hard to work. I don't even have a window but I was a little restless. It didn't help that our office has a lot of sports-loving men and with today being the start of March Madness, they were a little distracted by basketball to focus. Add the fact that it was St. Patricks' Day to the mix and, well, it was a very low-key day in the office.

I even managed to sneak out early. I wanted to get home and give the pups a chance to enjoy the weather. I always feel bad if they're cooped up inside on a nice day. I also got to come home and do a little prep work for my current DIY project- I did the edging of my room today. All that's left is to grab a roller and do the rest of it.

I like having projects. It's so much fun to plan what I'm going to do and then start doing it. I do have a tendency to procrastinate. I have the idea for something and then I don't do much about it for a while. Eventually, however, if I want to really do it...I do it.

I think I get that from my dad. He's a project kind of man. He has big ideas for home improvement and he likes to do it himself. He's pretty good at it too.

The only thing is...he often doesn't quite finish. For example, I still remember how, back in England, he built my mum a lot of new kitchen cabinets. The only thing is he didn't put doors on them. For months, we had no cupboard doors. I think he finally got around to it a few months later.

Another one is the house he and my mum live in now. He began to redo the siding. Currently, the house has two different colours of siding because he never quite finished that.

He's currently redoing their office and remodeling so that my parents' bedroom is bigger. He ripped up the floor and...it stayed like that for a couple of months. Now, fortunately, he's back involved in that project so the room is getting finished. My fingers are crossed that he actually does finish it and doesn't, say, leave the ceiling undone. I think he still has yet to build a window sill for the window he replaced before winter began.

I admire my dad and his ability to do practically anything. I try to be like that but, alas, I'm a bit of a clumsy monkeypants and, often, when I do something that is rather finicky and involves great detail, I tend to get sloppy and bored because it's just too time consuming for me.

Still, I think I did inherit his love of projects. My only fear is that maybe I inherited the inability to quite finish them. I look around my house. I did get my cranberry walls painted when I moved in but the baseboards still look as natty as they did when I moved in and I haven't done anything about it. I did replace one of the lightswitch covers to be more ornate but there's still another one I haven't done yet.

So, you can see my fear. I'm currently repainting a room in which I'd also like to redo the floors and rearrange it a bit. I'm afraid I won't get that far. Don't get me wrong, I want to get that far I just...well, like my dad, I get distracted easily by other projects. This is why when I start to clean the kitchen, I suddenly find that I'm taking an inventory and alphabetizing my spice cupboard. True story. I have an excellently organized spice collection and a list on the cabinet door to which I can refer if I want to check I have something I need for a recipe.

Still, I do believe there's such a thing as mind over matter. Thus, if I know I'm prone to not finishing things, I must make sure that I DO in fact finish them. It's possible. I'm looking forward to finishing the painting this weekend. I like closure which is another reason I shouldn't have a problem finishing something.

I just need to make sure that something more fun doesn't get in the way like, for example, landscaping my front yard.

It is looking a bit bedraggled.

Just kidding.

I hope.

Happy Friday and have a great weekend!

Beautiful Weather for a Busy Weekend

This was one of those weekends when I didn't have anything planned but it ended up being a blur of business anyway.

It helped that Saturday was an absolutely beautiful day. Having had snow only two days before, it was unexpected but it ended up being almost 60 degrees, sunny, blue skies...perfect. It was the type of day where you feel guilty for staying inside.

Thus, I spent the majority of the day outside, clearing the autumn and winter debris from the garden and sprucing it up, ready to start planting/landscaping when spring genuinally arrives. I had planned on taking the girls for a walk over the park but instead, they spent the time happily playing outside in the garden while I worked. We compensated by walking around the neighbourhood twice. It was a busy walk due to the weather. We saw Larry-the-Potential-Serial-Killer for the first time since the autumn. He was very friendly. The pups and I have actually had to avoid his house for the past few days due to a very Dead Squirrel that was laying on the edge of his property.

Dead Squirrel posed a problem because the girls could smell it and desperately wanted to claim it as their prize. The first day we discovered Dead Squirrel, I was just glad the leashes I walk the girls on were strong. Sookie and Rory both whined and wimpered desperately to be allowed to go get Dead Squirrel but, alas, I had to play the mean mum card and say "No." Also, it violates our Squirrel Rules anyway: Sookie and Rory may claim any squirrel that they personally catch. Squirrel must be in full health when caught. Already Dead Squirrels do not count and thus will not be claimed.

We really do have Squirrel Rules. I like to pretend the girls understand them even though I know they don't care. Squirrels to dachshunds are a little like crack to an addict: They desperately want the squirrel, they need the squirrel. Nothing else counts but getting the squirrel.

Fortunately, squirrels are too fast for the girls and they can climb trees. This, however, never prevents a chase anyway.

I had to explain to Larry-the-Potential-Serial-Killer why we were avoiding his property. He said he'd take care of Dead Squirrel for us so we could walk by. He's actually very nice like that. Also, I'm sure he didn't really want a decaying rodent on his lawn, anyway.

Dead Squirrel was gone by Sunday. Unfortunately, so was the nice weather. We woke up to a grey day that was almost 20 degrees cooler than the day before. Also, it didn't help that I completely forgot about Daylight Savings Time. I actually knew that it was happening this weekend but completely forgot to change the clocks before I went to bed lst night. Thus, when I woke up this morning, my alarm clock read 8:40 a.m. Then when we got up, I looked at my cell phone and was shocked to see it said it was almost 10 a.m. Thus, the lightbulb in my brain went on and I figured it out. Still, I'm not a fan of the time change. Falling back is ok, I suppose but it's the springing forward I don't like. We lose an hour of sleep and it's not that easy to tell our body clock that it's seven p.m. when we know it's really only 6 p.m. It'll take a couple of weeks before it starts feeling natural.

Even with the clock change surprise this morning, I still had a productive day. I finally got my paint picked out for my family room so I spent the day cleaning the room, taping the edges and taking down curtain rods. All that's left is to actually paint it which I forsee happening next weekend. Hopefully it well be slightly easier than the cranberry paint debacle of 2009.

All in all, working in the garden, working around the house and walking 2.5 miles each day with the dogs has made for a busy weekend. It's the type of weekend that makes me feel like I need a hot bath to soothe my aching muscles but also that it's good to have aching muscles.

Tomorrow it'll be back to work. It's another Monday. As we all know, I'm not particularly a fan of those but I'm bound and determined to make sure tomorrow is a good Monday. After all, I've had a lovely weekend with lots of puppy time as well as time to appreciate being a homeowner as well as some much needed fresh air. It really doesn't get much better than that.

Thus, I will make sure to carry that feeling forward, no matter how grey and gloomy Monday tries to be. Although, if it wanted to be sunny, warm and pretty outside, that would definitely help.

Fingers crossed!

Happy Monday.

Lazy Holiday Weekends....

I love long weekends. It's so nice to have three days to just do whatever you want. Regular weekends are just a little too short especially when you spend Saturday running errands/doing tasks you didn't get a chance to do in the week and Sundays are spent trying to relax or, worse, continuing those errands. The three day weekend gives you one extra day that is pure weekend- time to actually unwind and relax.

My weekend was spent with my friend Saz who flew in from Washington D.C. She was originally supposed to come in February but thanks to the mountains of snow that was dumped on the DC area in February, she had to postpone.

This time, it was the opposite of snowy. It was very hot and rather humid. Nevertheless, we managed to make it work in our favour. Neither Saz or I are what you'd call 'outdoor gals' or, really, even in the realm of being even remotely outdoorsy. Thus, we find our favourite entertainment inside and so the heat of the briskly approaching summer didn't bother us much at all.

It was nice to have a human friend to talk to. I love my puppies but they're not much on conversation. Also, it's nice to have someone to talk to who isn't going to run off with my shoes or try to nip my nose. If Saz did, I'd be worried. Fortunately, she didn't. We spent the weekend just relaxing. We did some shopping, did a girly day with a nice brunch and mimosas, pedicures and seeing "Sex and the City 2."

It seemed like a great idea except that "Sex and the City 2" was pretty awful. It was just a cheap attempt to continue the popularity of the TV show and the first movie. It was full of cheap gags, bad puns and a ridiculous romp in the Middle East that lasted FAR too long and made you cringe. It also made you dislike one of the main characters immensely.

Still, even in spite of the bad movie, we had fun. Saz got along very well with Rory and Sookie who decided that jumping on her head was their new favourite pasttime. I got to cook for a guest which is always fun, particularly when you don't disgust them. I also got to see how it felt to play a hostess in my own home.

I have to say, it felt pretty nice. It's nice to have the space to give guests their own room. It's nice to have a dining room table to set for a nice dinner and it's especially nice to be able to know that it's my house.

It's actually been a year now since I put in the bid on this place. In a week or so, I'll have been a homeowner for exactly a year. In that year, I've learned things about painting, mowing, putting down new sticky floor tiles and growing my own vegetables. I've also learned to cook much better than I ever could, finished a novel and published one. I've also adopted two puppies who have become the centre of my domestic world. I've learned not to despise my job most days. I've learned that while neighbours can be very nice, their yappy dogs make them seem far less so.

Most of all, I think I've learned that owning a house is a good thing. I'm proud to have made the move and I'm proud to be able to have guests and entertain like a real grown-up. The house I bought from the nice old lady last year has finally become my home. Well, mine, Sookie and Rory's home, really.

Now that Saz has left, the house seems really quiet. A little time remains of the long weekend so I think the pups and I will probably grill outside for dinner. It seems like the right thing to do on a holiday and now we have a house, we can grill. I still need to learn how to do THAT a little better but we're working on it. It all takes time...right?

I hope you all had good long weekends. Happy Tuesday to you all!

Post Traumatic Paint Disorder and Other Things...

I think I'm sleepier this morning than yesterday, if that's possible. I blame it on the fact that I actually had a semi-relaxing evening last night. I refused to go to my house and work just because I knew if I did, it would not be a fun experience.

The sad thing is even when I don't go to the house, I can't seem to stop thinking about it. I dreamed about painting last night. That was not terribly relaxing. Yesterday, I went on a walk at lunch with some coworkers and we happened to pass by a man who was carrying a paint tray and roller. I felt a cold shudder run up and down my spine. I think I might be suffering from a little Post Traumatic Paint Disorder.

Still, here I am, somewhat alert and ready to start my day. Well...ok, so I'm ready to start the day. I'm hoping the alert part will come later.

It's funny how easy it is to follow a morning routine without being really alert. From the moment I stumble out of bed, shutting off the annoying morning radio show since it did it's job and woke me up, I'm usually in a bit of a stupor. Then I turn on the morning news on the TV and start the process of getting ready. I've started to like the news in the mornings; its good company. Today there were no bears in the news. I was quite sad about that. Lately, it seems like there's always a black bear somewhere or other, stumbling into someone's back yard. I like bear stories. Yesterday, the news was featuring a local beef jerky manufacturer. Well, actually, it wasn't the news as much as the weatherman. He was doing an on-site visit of a local beef jerky company that's been rated one of the best in the U.S. I was quite happy for the weatherman since, lately, he's been wrong about the weather almost every day. At least there's not too much he can screw up by talking to someone about beef jerky. On the plus side, they didn't show us how the beef jerky came to be but just showed us the finished result. That was a relief. It's one thing to enjoy the taste of something; it's another thing to actually see the nasty process of how it comes to be. I prefer ignorance with some of my food. That way I can still love a good hot dog, enjoy bacon with my breakfast and eat at KFC.

Still, it was nice to see the weatherman out and about yesterday. He really is a terrible meteorologist. He was the one that promised a nice, sunny, hot and humid 4th of July only two days before the actual day. Then we had a cool, wet and dreary 4th of July. I find it hard to believe that with the amazing live Doppler 10 Thousand or whatever we're up to now, it's so hard to predict the weather two days ahead of time. However, this is why weatherman is the...the weatherman and I am Captain Monkeypants. Maybe it's like one of those mystery novels; weatherman deliberately misleads us so that we keep tuning in to guess whether he'll be right today.

Probably not though. As always, I find my best option is to stick my head out the window and see what the weather's doing. I keep an umbrella in the car. I keep sunglasses in my car. I have a snow shovel, just in case, in the boot of my car. So....I think I'm covered. Though I'm not counting on using the snow shovel for a few months. As much as I love snow, there's a season for that and it is not now.

Clearly, I'm feeling rambly today. I didn't really have a topic in mind when I sat down to write this. Life is a little busy at the moment. I mostly like it that way. I do miss the leisure of sitting down, tapping away at my computer and being able to write whatever I feel like. I have my "office" picked out in my house; I'm planning on furnishing it with a lot of books and my computer and that's it. It'll be my hideaway and hopefully that will push me forward in my writing. I've been at a standstill too long. I've blamed Amazon.com and I've blamed Publisher's Weekly. To some extent, I still blame them but there comes a point when you have to move on. Although I'm sure both Borders and Barnes and Noble are quite happy with my Amazon.com grudge. I've made a firm point of doing all my bookbuying from those two stores. Given my latest obsession with the Sookie Stackhouse novels, I'd say they've both done rather well. It's my private way of sticking my tongue out at Amazon.com. I hold no illusions that they care but it satisfies me to have to work a little harder to shop rather than relying on the old standby of Amazon. Hey, Barnes and Noble offer free shipping too so there, Amazon.com.

Ok, now I'm really babbling. Which means it's time for me to wrap this up for the day. Sometimes it's nice just to write whatever's on my mind. Thanks, as always, for bearing with me and reading.

Happy Tuesday.

The Saga of the Cranberry Paint...

It's back to work after a long weekend today. These are some of the worst days to have to get up and go into the office. Mondays themselves are bad enough but after a three-day weekend they're worst. They loom like an unwelcome guest, their arrival inevitable and when the alarm goes off to wake us from sleep, we experience a moment of loathing, of hating that the weekend is over.

Of course, I say that after having one of those weekends that didn't really feel like a weekend. I had three days off but ask if I had fun and I'd have to answer with an honest, "not really."

You see, I painted my living room this weekend. I've mentioned in prior blogs that I wanted to do that before I moved in. I had my colours picked out: Cranberry and sage. I liked the samples, I knew I'd like the colour.

I still like the colour which, given the ordeal it put me through, is an amazing fact.

You see...I've never painted a room before. I've been either a parent's-house dweller or an apartment dweller my whole life. Painting wasn't really an option. So I was overjoyed to realize that now I own a house, I could paint it. I knew there'd be a learning curve, a series of trials and errors that are inevitable with each new experience. And, oh yes, believe me, there was a learning curve.

Last weekend, I happily went to Lowe's to obtain my cans of paint. I bought a can of "Cranberry" and a can of "Meadow" which is a pretty sage-green. My paint-mixer was a young man who expertly hit the right buttons to mix my paint and seemed to know what he was doing. So I asked him, "Do I need primer for the cranberry?" He looked at it and squinted and said, "No. It's our signature brand paint. It's one-coat coverage." I double-checked, he assured me it was one-coat coverage.

Let me tell you...it is NOT one-coat coverage. As soon as I finished my masking and prepping and started to roll that paint onto the wall, I realized I was going to have a problem. In my inexperience, I wondered if I just needed to wait for the paint to dry and it would work its one-coat coverage magic. Nope. Coat after coat and it finally began looking like a cranberry. It took three cans of paint to give me an almost-covered room. I could still use another coat but for almost $30 a can, I've overstretched my budget considerably. Ironically, when I was buying my third gallon of paint, another man waited on me and when he handed me my cranberry paint, he said, "has anyone talked to you about this Cranberry?"

"Why, no," I said, through gritted teeth.

"Well," he said. "You're gonna need a primer. Most reds do."

I glared at him which made me feel a little bad because he was being nice. "That would have been helpful to know YESTERDAY," I said, politely. "This is my third can."

He looked a little pitying after that which made me feel less bad about glaring.

I did get my room painted. I realized I'm not adept at detail work and while the green goes nicely with the cranberry, I didn't do so well at making the edges of the room trim look that tidy. At this point in time, I don't really care. I had planned on doing two rooms in three days. I barely got one room done. I worked from about 9 a.m. to 8 p.m. every day. It was not the most relaxing of weekends but it was productive.

In the end, I have a mostly-Cranberry room. As a messy Monkeypants, I managed to get rather a lot of paint on me. I painted barefoot so as not to mess up my shoes. This meant each day, I had rainbow feet and had to go home and scrub them off in the bathtub to return them to their non-painty state of being. There's nothing better than relaxing in the bath after a hard day of painting with a beer and a Sookie Stackhouse novel.

Of course, also as I am a messy Monkeypants, I made a bit of a splattered mess on the ceiling tooeven with my masking tape efforts. So I ended up painting the ceiling too. I worked hard on that, edging it properly and using an awful lot of muscle rolling above my head. I covered every surface but when I left the house yesterday to return to the blessedly unpainted walls of my apartment, I noticed it was looking a little patchy. I'm not going to pay any attention to that. I will say that to Lowes and your "Signature" paint by Valspar, it is not one-coat coverage in most cases and you probably should note that on your cans. After all, I used basic off-white ceiling paint and I made absolute sure I didn't miss a spot. Yet...somehow....it's still looking like I did miss spots. However, I do like how the good parts of the ceiling look with the cranberry and sage paint. So at least I'm mostly happy with the final result.

The irksome thing is that when people ask how the painting went and I tell them the Saga of the Cranberry Paint, the majority of people are very much, "Oh, you didn't know? You ALWAYS need primer for red paints." Um, yes...thank you, that's very helpful. Even when I asked some of the same people point-blank if they could offer tips and I told them my colour was cranberry, none of them piped up and said, "You'll definitely need primer." Why is it that people are only experts after the fact? It's like when you date someone and you have a nice time and then he dumps you because he's getting back with an ex-girlfriend. Everyone says, "Oh, you didn't know that he and Ms. X were almost engaged before?" or "Well, he only broke up with X a month ago." Naturally, he never told me and neither did they until after it's all over and you're left standing in the rubble feeling rather stupid and naive.

That's the part I hate: The feeling dumb. I know that, truthfully, I'm not dumb, I just didn't know. But as with everything, in hindsight, you realize you should have known better. I should have realized with my cranberry paint that I'd had to use a lot of paint when I did the edges of the room. Yet I was using a paintbrush; it's different from a roller.

I'm not holding anyone responsible for my snafu. The only person I'll hold responsible is me for not researching more deeply. I should have realized. However, I learned and future painting projects will be done a little more carefully. I have a colour called "Mulling Spices" for my bedroom. I don't think there's any red in it but you better believe I'm going to test out that colour first before I go nuts and try and paint the entire room.

Still, as I've said before and will say again, each day as a first-time homeowner is a new experience. I've now painted a room and can safely say that there are things I would do differently next time I paint. And since I have a whole can of "Mulling Spices" paint ready to go, that time is going to come sooner than later. I just hope that it's truly one-coat coverage. Hey, what can I say...I'm mostly an optimist. But I have a can of primer on hand...just in case.

Happy Monday.

Death to Mosquitoes!

I haven't blogged about writing in a while. I haven't really had time to write and I hate that. What with the conference last week and now moving into a new house, there's been little time to just shut myself away with my computer and let the ideas flow.

The ideas are still flowing but I just haven't had time to sit down. I'm hoping that by the end of July when I'm ensconced in my house, I'll find time to do some writing. The wonderful thing that I'm realizing with each box I carry that this is my house. I never have to move again unless I really want to. This is a permanent place; no more will I have to worry about rent increases or noisy sex above me.

At least I hope not, as far as the noisy sex goes. Considering my house is a one-level ranch style with only a crawl space in the ceiling to get to the heating ducts, I'd be really worried if I heard sex sounds coming from up there.

Then again, that might give me some mighty good fodder for my imagination when I do get time to write again.

I'm starting to hate that the house is always on my mind. I dreamed about it last night. That's how I know I'm stressed; when I can't escape, even into the land of dreams. I dreamed that I was trying to mask up the living room to paint but people kept moving furniture and wall fixtures in when I wasn't looking so I no longer knew how I was going to get started or what I was supposed to do.

In actually, I think I finished masking last night. I had to do some re-masking. I bought two types of tape, one two inch thick pack from Big Lots and a pack of standard inch-thick masking tape from Lowes All of my Big Lots tape decided to come unstuck overnight so I had to reseal it yesterday. It was rather frustrating. I'm hoping the Lowes tape holds because aside from laying down my drop cloths, I'm ready to start painting.

The thing about things like painting is, for me, I find them relaxing. The actual work itself isn't relaxing but once I get going on a project like that, it's like my mind just opens up and lets me think of whatever I like. It's sort of a free-flow time as far as my thought processes go. If I'm alone, I usually do my best thinking when my body is occupied in the manual labour. It's why I like landscaping. I love being able to shut down and just focus on the task because, by doing so, it lets me relax into whatever thoughts I like. It's a good time for problem-solving, for coming to terms with things.

Of course, I say this before I start painting. In my mind, it goes smoothly. In reality, I'm a messy little monkeypants and I think I might have to contend with drips and messes rather a lot.

I'm actually not going to the house tonight though. I'm going to spend some time organizing the next load of things I want to take from my apartment. The moving is a slow process but it's steady.

In some ways, I wish I could fast-forward so that the moving/painting/preparation is done. Yet if I did that, I'd miss out on many things. July is a month of birthdays, of weddings, of a trip to Comic-con. It's a busy month for sure but I think it's going to be a fun month. At the very least, it'll be a productive month.

I feel bad that all I'm blogging about is my new house at the moment. I'm going to try to taper off about it so that I don't become a one-note blogger. It's just all so new at the moment and every day reveals something new. Usually it's a spider. I try to rescue them and put them out the back door in lieu of killing them. I've only had one slight-casualty: Bert. I name each spider. So far I've had Bert, Sid and Fred. Bert accidentally lost a leg as I tried to trap him in a container to carry him out. He managed to crawl away though so I have to assume that though he's now a seven-legged spider, he'll be ok. I'm not a big fan of spiders but as I always say, it's not their fault they were born a little creepy and I think they have a bad reputation. This is not to say that they don't make my pulse race a little and occasionally make me squeal but I still try to respect them. Or at least not kill them.

There are other creepy crawlies in my house. I've met a couple of crickets and a mosquito. The mosquito died. I do not regret to inform you of this. I am anti-mosquito. Mosquitos must die. I know they, too, have a purpose in life but given that they attack me in droves whenever I step outside, I'm only repaying the favour. They're out for blood and so am I.

That's the only part of the Midwest of which I am not excited to re-experience. We have mosquitoes in California but not too many; it's too dry. Not so here in the Midwest. They thrive here on the humidity. They also thrive on me. I can be out with someone who might get a couple of bites that are piddly little things. Me, I'll be bitten about eight times and they will swell up into these horrible itchy welts of heat. I hate mosquitoes. I can't figure out what their purpose is in life. I'm sure they have one in the mosquito/insect world. Maybe that's why I like to save the lives of spiders too: They trap and kill mosquitoes for dinner and I salute that.

Still, mosquitoes, spiders or crickets, they're invading my turf and I think I have the right to prosecute them as I see fit. It is my house. I can kick them out/kill them. I never felt quite right doing that in an apartment because though I live there, it's not mine. Actually, I always wondered about that: If a vampire shows up to my apartment, could I invite him in? I mean, yes it's my home but it's not my building. Doesn't the owner have to do the inviting? That's always been fuzzy in my mind. Of course, I do realize that vampires don't exist and they're not going to really show up at my door. It doesn't mean I can't wonder. Spiders just don't have the same allure and, besides, they come in, invited or not.

Just something to ponder, I suppose.

Happy Tuesday.