Chaos Reigns

This Just Isn't Right!

I protest! This just can't be happening! There is strange white stuff falling from the sky. In Georgia. In March.

And it's cold. Where is that global warming I've been hearing so much about? I need it NOW!

Here's the report from weather.com:

PERIOD OF LIGHT SNOW EXPECTED  ACROSS NORTH CENTRAL GEORGIA THIS  MORNING...

A DEEP UPPER LOW WILL CONTINUE MOVING NORTHEAST THIS MORNING OUT OF THE TENNESSEE VALLEY TOWARD THE MID- ATLANTIC REGION BY AFTERNOON. MUCH COLDER AIR IS SPREADING INTO WEST AND NORTH GEORGIA BEHIND THIS SYSTEM. LIGHT RAIN SHOWERS ACCOMPANYING THE UPPER SYSTEM ARE CHANGING TO LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS ACROSS NORTH AND CENTRAL GEORGIA.

A PERIOD OF LIGHT SNOW SHOWERS FROM TWO TO FOUR HOURS MAY OCCUR ACROSS NORTH AND CENTRAL GEORGIA THIS MORNING...WITH A LIGHT DUSTING POSSIBLE ON GRASSY SURFACES. SURFACE TEMPERATURES WILL REMAIN ABOVE FREEZING DURING THIS EVENT...THUS NO TRAVEL PROBLEMS ARE ANTICIPATED AND MOST OF THE SNOW WILL MELT AS IT FALLS ON ROAD SURFACES.

Eric, of course, is very excited. He's only seen snow (that dreaded four letter word that probably shouldn't be used in mixed company) a couple of times in his life. The child is under the delusion that he's missing out on something by not needing a sled, skis, and ice skates.

That's a snowflake on his face. A face previously untouched by snow.

Personally, (just in case you didn't get the idea that I don't like snow) I don't like snow. I don't like cold. By the way, cold is defined as anything below 70 degrees. I don't live in the "deep south" just for the sweet tea, boiled peanuts, and collard greens. And I don't live down here for snow. I want warmth! Maybe I should move further south. Like to the Amazon. I hear Brazil is nice this time of year.

Curses, Foiled Again!

It's getting darker and darker It's starting to rain. The weather service has issued Thunder Storm Warnings. Guess what that means. No work on the house today. I knew I didn't need that paint today. However, the guys called to cancel today due to the weather and rescheduled for tomorrow. Now if the weather will cooperate.

The Toe Report

My toe has pretty much healed. It doesn't hurt at all anymore. My arm still has a knot from the tetanus shot but it doesn't really hurt anymore either. That means it's time for more renovations! The guys are due here this morning and I still haven't bought paint. Or deck stain. Oh, well. I'm sure I won't need it until tomorrow.

Happy Birthday, Michael John

Twenty four years ago today, I was blessed with a baby boy. I would post a baby picture but that would entail finding one and scanning it. It's just not going to happen tonight. I'm TIRED. I might get up to make dinner but even that is iffy at this point. I think the birthday dinner will be pizza.

Back to the birthday boy. He's smart and totally obsessed with all things computer driven. To bad the razor isn't connected to the internet.

He's entirely too serious but has impeccable taste in head gear.

He has the looks of a movie star. Like this one.  That is not David Herman playing the part of Michael Bolton in Office Space. I know my child. I'd recognize him anywhere.

  Happy Birthday, Michael.

I Am My Mother's Daughter

Yep, I am. I called and told her that last night.

Me: I'm your daughter.
Mom: Yes, I know.
Me: I'm your daughter.
Mom: Yes, I know.
Me: Dad says I'm more and more like you all the time.
Mom: Uh oh, what did you do now?

Mom can take the simplest job and find a way to injure herself. It seems I took the first step in that direction yesterday.

First of all, I live in an old house.

This is the old house. It is an old house in desperate need of repair.  Okay,  it's more in need of a good cleaning than repairs but today we're talking repairs. I finally found a man who wanted to work - someone with a resume of repairing and renovating old houses. Someone whose work on new construction I've seen. Someone that I've known for a couple of years and during that time earned my trust and respect.

So yesterday Andy and his nephew, Brian showed up prepared to work. Eric was in seventh heaven. Two of his favorite people, with tools, and they let him help. Eric and Brian did the needed work under the house while Andy installed a ceiling fan.

Now, we're getting down to the knitty gritty. The threshold of the back door had rotted. Andy started working on that. Then it gets nasty. The sill of the house also has rot. Now, I get the warning that all old home owners (I mean owners of old houses not old owners of houses although I qualify for that too.) dread hearing. "I'm going to have to start ripping this out. I don't have any idea of how much damage there is. I won't know until I get in there."

This is what my deck looked like once upon a time in a universe far, far way. Isn't it pretty? Oh, I do love to sit on my deck and sip ice tea.

This is what it looks like today. What a mess!

Now at this point you're probably wondering what all of this has to do with me following in my mother's footsteps and her ability to injure herself. Bet you can guess where we're going now.

See that pile of lumber on the right? Can you see the nails sticking out of the boards?
Well, look here. I was very carefully moving the boards out of Brian's way when I very carefully set one down on my foot with the nails pointing down. I also very carefully impaled my big toe at which point I very carefully watched my language.

The guys leave and I head to the doctor to get the requisite tetnus shot since I couldn't remember the last one I got. I thought I'd just bop in, get jabbed, and come home. WRONG! I had to see the doctor who decided that I needed an antibiotic in addition to the shot. She offered me some pain killers, but being my mother's daughter, I turned them down. (We're tough, right Mom?) So my little jaunt ended up lasting 4 hours. By the time I got home I was ready to do in anyone that came within 5 miles of my foot. Long about 3 a.m. I was wondering what I was thinking when I turned down the pain pills.

I do have a long way to go to reach Mom's level of self destruction. She scratched her thumb picking blackberries for jam and ended up going to the doctor several times to have it debredded. She smashed her thumb with a hammer when they were building their house. That was interesting. She dropped a 40 lb. (I think that's what it weighed) flag stand on her big toe. That wasn't pretty. She stepped of a step stool and broke her ankle. It was, to quote the ortho-doc, NASTY! 

As much as I love and admire my mother and want to emulate her, I think I'll work other ways to do that. I think she'll still let me be her daughter.

How I Spent February 14th

Bet you thought this post would be about Valentine's Day, didn't  you? Fooled you! This is about bathrooms. Oh, yes indeedy, bathrooms. I have two. Two old bathrooms. One old bathroom and one very old bathroom. One very old bathroom and a 13 year old boy. 

I also have a sister, Casey, who makes Handy Andy look like he's all thumbs. Casey can fix, repair, replace, or renovate just about anything. She's laid wood floors in her house. She's tiled bathrooms, she's fixed toilets, she hangs ceiling fans ... she may not be Suzy Homemaker but she is Little Miss Fixit.

Me - I've got the number of every plumber, electrician, and repairman within 100 miles. I call and they might come. Casey just rolls her eyes.

A month ago, Eric, the 13 year old boy, had a run in with the pedestal sink in the very old bathroom. Eric was uninjured but the pedestal sink was hanging at 45 degree angle. The drain pipe did not survive.

I was not about to let my baby sister outdo me in anything. I thought about it for a couple of weeks and decided that if she can fix the plumbing, I can fix the plumbing and save myself about $80 in the process. So off to Lowe's. I browse, I look, I am totally confused. So I track down a guy in a red vest and he sells me $5.00 worth of pipes and brackets to reattach the sink to the wall.

I put stored my purchases under the sink - in the bag. I didn't want to rush into anything. After all, plumbing is one the great mysteries of life. One I never wanted to delve into - that's why God created plumbers just for me.

I pulled out the bag and ripped of the old, broken pieces. I started putting the pipes together and they didn't fit. I had two threaded pieces that were supposed to go together and no way to connect them.

Being the really smart person that I am, I checked to see if the sink brackets fit. They didn't. The sink is about two inches too far from the wall. So I thought as long as I am at Lowe's I'll pick up a hunk of 2X4 and a hacksaw because one of the pieces was too long to fit properly. So I gather up all my pieces of pipe and head to the store.

I explained my dilemma to another man wearing a red vest. He rolled his eyes (I do cause a it of eye-rolling, don't I?) as he explained 3 times that I didn't need to use a connector with threads at both ends, just the washer and the little ring. The fourth time he explained it got it! Okay, just because the other guy sold it to me didn't me I had to use it! Told you I'm smart. Especially in the area of plumbing.

I bought my hacksaw (because I can't find the one I already own).  I also bought a flashlight and the batteries to go in it (because the 3 flashlights I already have were sucked up in a beam of light by aliens). And a really neat scraper to get the wall paper of the kitchen walls (another story for another day) and some long screws to attach to the 2X4 to the wall(because I needed them). So for $75 or so I left  Lowe's. Without the 2X4. Their scrap bin was empty and their saw was broken. Off to Home Depot for $1.00 worth of wood.

I found my 2X4. I had it cut to size (free  - no charge for the first cut) and we're headed to the check out. Past the clearance aisle. Where I found the tub faucet that matches the one on the sink. On sale! Marked down! No longer $189 - now only $98! I got out of Home Depot for a mere $106.54.

I got the sink put back together. It is firmly attached to the wall - at least until Eric decides to  do pull ups off the rim again. And I totaled up the cost:

Six hours (including the shopping time)

Parts                                   $  5.00
Good stuff from Lowe's             75.00
More plumbing from HD         106.54
the cost of the tiles, etc to install the new faucet - Lord only knows
My baby sister's eyeballs staying put - PRICELESS

Beautiful Winter Day

Oh, I love winter in the south. Well, winter in the south as opposed to winter in the north. Because I really don't like winter anywhere except, perhaps, Australia. I've never been to Australia so that's just a guess.  Yesterday was a perfect example of a perfect southern winter day. If there can be a perfect winter day north of Australia.  Sixty nine degrees (which is a bit on the cool side for me), no breeze (a good thing or it would most definitely been on the cool side), beautiful sunshine.

I promised to take Eric and a friend to the paintball field for the afternoon. There we met up with about 8 - 10 home school kids all wanting to blast each other with hot pink paint.




But me, no siree. I'm not letting those guys fire projectiles at me. I've seen the bruises and it just ain't going to happen. I don't like pain.  In fact, I won't even put on a mask to go down to the fields so no photos of our paintball warriors. Some things just aren't worth the grief. (Eric did get me to commit to photographing the next paintball war. I just better not get hit if he knows what's good for him.

Instead I chose to sit here and bask in the warm sun and enjoy the quiet.

 

Okay, so it wasn't so quiet with the pwafts of the guns but ear protection was not required. That's a good thing when you have teenage boys and paintball guns nearby.

And I got to read a book and experiment with my camera. I might learn how to use it someday and take great artsy photos. In the meantime, I'm taking pictures of water bottles.

I loved the blue reflections of the water bottle on the table. I have more I was going to post but I better get dressed, feed a dog or two and maybe a cat or four. They get a little testy when they aren't fed on a regular basis. First they bang the dishes around and make awful sounds. If that doesn't work, then they eat my electric cords and scratch the couch. I don't like it when they do that so I'll go make sure the dishes are full.

Randi at I Have to Say... is sponsoring The Recipe Box Swap. I love new recipes and I love sharing old favorites. You can share too. Just post a recipe or two and pop on over to link your blog.

Raisin Cake

This recipe has been in my family for generations. I know that my Grandma Dull (that was the last name. She definitely wasn't dull.) made it but I'm not sure if her mother did.

This recipe makes a dark, moist loaf filled with plump raisins and fills the house with the wonderful aroma of cinnamon and cloves. I hope you enjoy it.

Mix together and simmer until the raisins are plump:
2 cups seedless raisins
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 tsp cloves
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp allspice
2 1/2 cups boiling water

Set aside until cool; then add
1 tsp baking soda (yes, you add another tsp of soda)
1 tsp vanilla
2 - 2 1/2 cups flour (to make the dough quite thick.)

Pour into a greased 9X5X3 inch loaf pan. Bake at 325˚ for one hour.

Zombies

This is hilarious unless you are a dyed in the wool Democrat.

Star in Your Own JibJab! It's Free!

Let's Add to the Chaos

I don't know what I'm thinking. I suppose my house doesn't have enough chaos for me. I've only got a adult son, a teenage boy, 4 cats inside, 1 cat outside, and King Louis the First and Last, the ADHD dog.  All is calm and peaceful here. I wouldn't lie to you. Much.

Perhaps I've gone over the deep end. Maybe I'm just insane. Then again, maybe I can blame it all on Vu. I think she's getting even with me for this by sending this to live with me.

Ruthie

Vu claims that Sgt. Hubby (I just realized that I don't know Sgt. Hubby's rank. To me everyone is a sgt. I grew up thinking every man's first name was Sargent. So if Sgt Hubby is actually Maj. Hubby, forgive me and just chalk it up to being a very old Army brat.) is being transferred and they can't take Ruthie with them. That's what she says. I'm sure this is a plot to get revenge. Vu swore she would.

We brought Ruth home Friday for a trial run. We weren't sure how she and Louie would get along or how Ruthie would react to the cats. Ruth is a beautiful well mannered Boston Terrier. Except when a cat hisses at her. Then she found out that the cats would run. Four cats, all in different directions! What FUN! Until the mean lady made her lay down on her pillow.

So it looks like Vu's revenge is complete and Ruthie is a part of our family. Just remember Vu, there's still time for me to get some more fantastically flattering shots of you.

King Louis the First and Last with Ruthie